The land has gradually changed from steppe to dense forest. In the early evening you will reach a larger clearing with a single house in the middle. The building is quite large, made entirely of wood and resembles a Thorwal long house. It is very well maintained and seems to be inhabited as well.
Yet nowhere are people to be seen or voices to be heard.
Master information:
The house is the "village" Kysira marked on the color card: a lonely trading post in the middle of the wilderness, named after its owner. (The house is also mentioned in Gero's diary.) Forty-year-old Kysira has lived here since she was born. Her husband, with whom she has four children, died three years ago.
Shortly before the arrival of the heroes, the trading post was ravaged by robbers. Your fighters will likely look around the house and find the residents. As soon as they enter, they notice from the general confusion that an attack has obviously taken place here.
While the heroes take a closer look at the individual rooms, a group of hunters arrives who want to stop by Kysira for a few fires. The situation is highly misleading ...
Room 1 - General information:
You enter a taproom. The establishment is of a simple design; a few stools, benches, and rough tables, some of which are overturned or damaged on the floor. To the left, over a fireplace, hangs a kettle in which a stew is simmering. In the left wall there is a half-open door, in the right a closed one.
Room 2 - General information:
Apparently it is a warehouse. You will find sacks of flour and grain, dried meat, bows, arrows, knives, ropes and all sorts of other things. Originally they were probably once neatly stacked on the floor or sorted on shelves, now they are scattered wildly on the earth.
There is a table on the north wall with scales on it. Next to it are the remains of a wooden box. Two are lying around on the floor.
Master information:
When the heroes are in the warehouse, the hunters arrive.
Room 3 - General information:
The dormitory of the hostel. Twelve sacks of straw and some blankets lie on the floor. You won't find any luggage, obviously no guests are currently living here.
Room 4 - General information:
The fourth room is obviously a living room and bedroom. It is furnished with a comfortable armchair, which has certainly seen better days. There is a double bed against the wall, only half of which has been used. There is also a cupboard, a table and two chairs.
Master information:
Kyzira's bedroom, nothing special.
Room 5 - General information:
The decor of the room is very simple: two bunk beds, four chests and a table with four stools.
But you have finally found the inhabitants of the house. They are lying on the floor in front of you: a forty-year-old, red-haired woman and two boys and two girls between the ages of twelve and sixteen. All five are gagged and handcuffed so that they cannot move.
Master information:
Children's bedroom.
The hunters
General information:
As you are looking around, four women and a man enter the room. The first wears a thigh-length leather tunic, leather trousers and soft boots. She leans casually on her spear adorned with brightly colored feathers. The next one is dressed in a Nivesian fur vest and linen trousers. On her head she wears a wide-brimmed Vinsalter feather hat that some whim of fate has brought here. The third woman is small and round like a barrel. Her longbow towers over her almost by her head. She leans against the wall next to the door, plays with her fur hat and grins at you. The fourth is probably more than two paces tall and has to duck her head when she walks through the door. She also wears a leather tunic decorated with fringes and woolen trousers that are far too short. once fashionable in Gareth twenty-five years ago. A tame squirrel sits on her shoulder.
The man is the last to enter the scene. He wears a simple linen shirt, thigh-high leather boots and leather leg warmers.
He too is building up in front of you. There is silence for a while, then the tall woman slowly walks towards you. "Egg, egg, born ferrets robbing their nest."
Master information:
Now there are wedges! When the hunters arrived, of course, they noticed that something was wrong here. So they sneaked in, noticed the heroes, and drew their conclusions. (If the heroes posted a guard in front of the hut, the hunters silently put it out of action.)
The room is too narrow to fight with swords. So there is going to be a real brawl. At most, daggers can still be used.
Hunter values:
MU 14; LE 50; RS 1; AT / PA 14/13 (Dagger W + 1 / Raufen)
Probably they fight each other until one party has finally won. Only when Kysira and her children have been found will the misunderstanding clear up. Of course the hunters apologize and invite their heroes to a drink.
Kysira and the hunters know the Hergerdshof and also the shaman Nujuk. The farm, which was abandoned about thirty years ago, is thirty miles to the south. Nujuk's hut is very close to the property.
General information:
You quickly mount the horses again and ride on. The path drives you deeper and deeper into the game. Shortly before dusk, you will reach a circular clearing that is perhaps a mile in diameter. The grass on the ground has withered. In the middle you can see a building surrounded by a wall, on the edge, not far from where you step out of the forest, there is a hut. Smoke ripples from the chimney.
Master information:
The building in the middle of the clearing is Hergerdshof. Originally the walls housed a changing station on an old road that led from Leikinen via Firunshag to Gerasim and further into Bornland. Because of the boggy subsoil, the path was often impassable after the snowmelt and heavy rainfall, so that many travelers considered taking the detour via Kysira and Kirma. The exchange station, oversized for its purpose anyway, was abandoned. The final decisive factor for this was the gate into the limbus, which had opened here thirty years ago and which gave beings from the seventh sphere access to Dere.
As you approach the courtyard, the withered grass finally gives way to bare stone. The attentive observer (sensory acuity +2) notices that there is not the slightest sign of any form of life inside the courtyard - no moss between the cracks, no bird droppings on the cobblestones. The gate is to blame for all of this. It causes very strong astral disturbances that no living being can endure in the long term. Animals are immediately warned of this danger, the heroes' horses refuse to get closer than 250 paces to the walls. People who stay within the walls for a long time get sick and go to Boron after a disease that may last for moons, but maybe only for days. The gate can be seen from the inside of the courtyard in the sky as a swirling, gray mist,
All buildings have been abandoned and the residents' furniture and other belongings have been taken away.
See page 31 for a top view drawing of the courtyard that should be given to the heroes. The general plan on this page shows you again the arrangement of the buildings. The division into individual rooms was also drawn in.
Hostel: a large dining room, several small guest rooms.
Barn.
Woodshed.
Home of the host and the employees.
Storage cellar; the ceiling is supported by pillars. If you pass the large cellar gates and cross the vault, you can access the raised courtyard in front of the hostel via the two trap doors.
Courtyard in front of the hostel; two stone benches and two trap doors lead to the cellar. A spiral staircase leads to the courtyard of the residential building, another staircase leads to the forecourt, where the stable is also to be found.
Shelter for cars.
[map]
The shaman Nujuk lives in the little hut - you guessed it. He is a kind of guardian of the gate, which he discovered with his friend Mermodion. Since then, Nujuk has had to deny access to our world to creatures that do not belong here. A great responsibility rests on his shoulders. These and the frequent sight of terrible demons have slowly driven the shaman into madness.
Nujuk's hut consists of only one room. There are some herbs hanging from the ceiling that only a magician with the appropriate specialization recognizes as such, as needed for conjuring magic.
The shaman is around sixty years old, which is actually not an age for Nivesen, (This people is said to have a certain longevity - this may be due to the healthy Karen milk and the fresh northern air, but possibly just because the northern nomads have no birth certificates "He died at the Nivesian age of ..." is at least a common expression in the Middle Kingdom. Nonetheless, Nujuk looks as if he was already over eighty. His figure is bowed, his skin wrinkled, both of which are due to the unhealthy influence of the gate near which he is staying. However, Nujuk still has a full head of hair that is snow-white to his belt. He is dressed in fur-trimmed leather.
When the heroes arrive, Nujuk is having one of his rare waking moments. If your fighters describe the incidents of the last few days and the strange changes in their comrades, the shaman draws the right conclusions: He knows for sure that Ghur is at work here. He also knows Mermodion's statuette only too well.